Early detection of infectious diseases is important to enhance the quality of medical care and limit the spread of emerging infectious diseases. Thus, there is a need for rapid, sensitive, and inexpensive point-of-care sensors that have capability to identify multiple pathogens in complex samples such as blood.

Novel techniques have been developed for sensing pathogens, based on microfluidics. Eventually, the techniques will be platform for high throughput with low sample volume reagents and highly selective analyte sensing. These assays are designed to abstract molecular level details and mechanistic insights from biophysical and bioanalytical problems that would otherwise be difficult to approach.